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Bugs bare their magnetic bits

THE genetic code for tiny biological magnets called magnetosomes has been cracked.

The granules are produced by oxygen-hating bacteria and help them navigate, using the Earth’s magnetic field, towards deep, oxygen-poor regions of the ocean.

Tadashi Matsunaga at the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology in Japan and his colleagues singled out the genes by comparing well-known magnetic bacteria to a distantly related magnetic species. By identifying genes common to all species, they pinpointed those used for making magnetosomes (Genome Research, DOI&colon; 10.1101/gr.088906.108).

The discovery may herald the production of synthetic nanomagnets, which could lead to improvements in MRI …